European Union leaders today urged the United States to let the United Nations and EU help rebuild Iraq as new cracks threatened to appear over lifting trade sanctions.
The leaders, eager to bring international organisations back into play in the Iraq crisis, called for "a central role" for the UN and a significant EU role in the reconstruction that Washington is determined to dominate.
Their two-day informal EU summit in Athens, meant to welcome 10 new members to the bloc, has sought ways to work with the United States now that the fighting has passed.
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But President George W. Bush's call yesterday for the UN to lift economic sanctions against Iraq threatened to trigger another dispute, since it raises the issue of who controls oil sales and so effectively runs the country.
The EU and its leaders gave a cautious welcome to the idea but their comments were littered with words like "conditions" and "modalities", codewords that signalled there would be no simple wave of the pen to end the 13-year-old sanctions.
"The UN must play a central role, including in the process leading towards self-government for the Iraqi people, utilising its unique capacity and experience in post-conflict nation building," said a statement issued by EU president Greece.
It said the EU had committed "to play a significant role in the political and economic reconstruction of the country," indicating it did not want its contribution limited to simply providing humanitarian aid or supplementary police forces.
The statement did not mention the sanctions issue, but it was high on the agenda of informal talks.
The sanctions are the main leverage that Security Council members, including anti-war France, Germany and Russia, have to persuade Washington to give the UN a political role in turning shattered Iraq into a prospering democracy.
Washington wants to lift the sanctions quickly so Iraq can sell oil and pay for reconstruction, but UN resolutions say this depends on the world body certifying that Iraq is free of weapons of mass destruction.